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In the third instalment of Recipe Redux I will continue to talk about pairing wine my recipes. Today we will talk about salad wines, drinking at breakfast and what you should be drinking with your pasta.

Wine and Salad is kind of a tricky pairing to make. Salads normally have more than enough acidity for one palate to take. So finding a wine that will work with the acidity and the textures in a salad can be a balancing act. With this salad, I would go with Mount Nelson Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. The wine is from famed wine maker Lodovico Antinori, he set out to make a old world style Sauv Blanc from the high end fruit grown by the Kiwis. He succeeded in a big way. This wine can stand up to the meat, the sweetness of the pecan and the balsamic while giving you a grassy palette cleansing effect from the minerality and acidity of the wine.

Pasta with meat sauce is actually a little bit trickier to pair than just opening a bottle of Chianti. A pasta bake screams for acidity to cut the fat in the cheese and meat. Chianti can fit the bill but I would recommend trying something more interesting. Barberesco is a wine from Langhe, Piedmonte in northern italy. Barberesco comes from the Nebbiolo grape and is quite dry and acidic. Prunotto Barberesco is my pick for this one. Another Antinori family production that balances spice, floral and gamey notes that contrast the pasta bake well, and bring the flavours of the wine to a different level.

Drinking in the morning is something frowned upon by most people but pairing a sparkling wine with breakfast is hardly drinking. Think of it more as living. I would recommend a Cava from Spain. Cava is by the same method as Champagne and costs about a quarter of the price. The bubbles are a perfect interplay between the fluffy egg and, the creamy crunchy pine nuts and the silky salmon. I would recommend Segura Viudas Reserva Heredad, at a twenty five dollar price point this dry cava will blow you away with it’s quality and how it works perfectly with this dish. Plus it’s a great example of how you can get champagne quality for a much lower price.